The Daughter's Walk - Jane Kirkpatrick [94]
When I felt well enough to sit up and take nourishment on my own, I remembered Louise’s lament and agreed with her.
“I’ve asked the Warrens to do the trapping for me from now on,” I told Olea and Louise when the Warrens returned me to Coulee City. I was weak and had lost weight. I pulled the fur hat with its ear flaps off, not caring how matted my hair must look. Getting a hot bath and my hair washed would feel like heaven.
“It’s good to see you learn from experience,” Olea chided, “even if it does take years.”
“I’ll buy pelts from them exclusively, for a fair price. Maybe my profit will be a little less but still enough. And I’ll have them start livetrapping,” I told my friends.
“Whatever for?” Olea said.
“To do what the Finns are doing, only with foxes here. I’ll build pens out at the farm. We’ll have chickens for protein. We have enough cold weather to bring us excellent pelts. I’ve investigated it,” I said. “There’s hardly any risk.”
“Investigated? Have you been to Finland to see what’s happening there? Have you talked with those who think ranching fur-bearing animals has merit? No, Clara. You haven’t thought this through,” Olea said.
It struck me that her words were the very ones I’d spoken to my mother all those years ago before we took our walk.
When we carried our fur garments to Spokane for summer cleaning and storage in April of 1906, I looked in the city directory. I hadn’t done it before then, not wanting to see my family’s names without mine included. Ida worked as a domestic. My mother, Ole, Arthur, William, and Lillian lived at 1528 Mallon Avenue. Aunt Hannah wasn’t listed there, or anywhere. I wondered if she’d passed on. I’d last seen my brother Olaf in 1901. He wasn’t mentioned, so I assumed he worked outside of Spokane, maybe still at the Elstads’ farm. That he still hadn’t written to me stung.
I also looked up the Doré name, and there were Dorés listed. An Elsie, John, and Mitchell appeared, the latter a conductor on the Northern Pacific Railway. Seeing their names affirmed for me what my father had once said, that there were many Dorés. It was a name like Olson or Johnson, with a hundred branches on every family tree.
On my own, I took the streetcar to the Mallon address. I’m not sure what I thought I’d do there, but I wanted to see where they lived so I could picture where they carried on lives without me. I stood across the street from a fine-looking two-story home with dormers on the top floor and a lovely porch to grace the front. Lilac scent wafted from the yard. My stepfather had detailed the area above the porch with an intricate framed design that added interest, made it unique. A bay window brought in extra light. If he’d built the house as Olaf said he planned to, he’d done a fine job of it. Without the dirty money, they apparently lived comfortably.
My heart leaped as two girls came out of the house, onto the porch. They were about twelve. Lillian? They sat on the stone steps holding little books in their laps. Diaries. They giggled together. The one I thought was Lillian suddenly looked my way, as though she was aware that I stared.
When I waved, she waved back. My heart pounded. I looked for traffic, thinking to cross the street, when I heard Ida’s voice. “It’s time Marcia went home,” Ida said. “Lillian, come help Mama get the duster down.”
The girls whispered to each other, then separated. Lillian, lithe and blond, ran inside. The other girl walked off down the street. The emptiness I felt surprised me.
I took the streetcar back toward the Fairview house Olea owned and where we stayed when we came to Spokane. Instead of going all the way to the house, I got off and walked into a beauty shop and asked for a pompadour frame and spent the afternoon having my hair built up around it. “You’ll have to save the hair from your brushing,” the woman told me, “to fill in these thin places. Your hair is so soft!”
“Yes, I know,” I